Unemployment and demographics

Wed., May 8, 2019

I find it fascinating that articles and letters to the editor never seem to include the obvious; i.e., that the current low unemployment is tied to fewer workers. And why is that? The baby boomers are retiring!

This demographic time bomb has been known for decades and with fewer workers in the workforce, the same time bomb also is making Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid less viable over the long term. The number of workers supporting the growing elderly population is at an all-time low and will only grow worse. Reducing immigration compounds the problem.

Fewer workers willing and able to work, now and during the coming decades, has been predicted for as long as this baby boomer can remember. Low unemployment isn’t so much a product of one economic policy or another so much as demographic reality.

Bob Tattershall

Pullman

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